Unseen
by rosethatgrewfromconcrete
Summary: It didn't happen overnight- Mustafar. It was slowly coming but nobody really saw. She didn't even realize what it was until that moment when he raised his hand to suffocate her because he had never raised a hand against her. *Slightly different take on Anakin and Padmé.
1. Excuses and Forgiveness

They make no mention of Darth Vader or her pregnancy when the news of Senator Amidala's death is announced, smeared over the tabloids as a tragedy as the horrific details of her esophagus bruised from having been asphyxiated at the hands of a lover that lost his temper. Details of grotesque proportions leak to the public about forged investigations to the Senator's residence for disturbances with quarreling, fabrications of witnesses that saw the Senator conceal the ugliness of her lover with make-up and lies, and horrendous lies of her medical history released that includes cracked ribs and spilt lips, but it's all a lie, somewhat. But again, the actual evidence is damning enough—the neck muscles strained, ruptured capillaries, scratches along her neck—and it all points to strangulation and they can't deny it.

_The soles of her feet are sliced, lines crisscrossing over the expanse of delicate flesh, and she cringes when her handmaiden softly pulls away the gauze stained with crimson blood. Upon sight, the handmaiden inhales because it's far more than stepping on a solitary piece of glass as the Senator had lied about before she removed the bandage to attend the wound. _

"_I knocked over a vase," Padmé dismisses the worry with a lie, "in the middle of the night and I couldn't see where the glass was." _

"_Wasn't Anakin here," the handmaiden softly whispers, dabbing the cuts with antiseptic making the Senator flinch from the burn. _

"_He left before it happened," and it isn't a lie, but she's omitting still. But it isn't caught because her husband has left in the middle of the night to return to the war front—it's far too plausible, yet still, she's not telling that he left shortly after breaking the vase. _

_The handmaiden sighs exasperatedly, "You couldn't have waited until morning to clean it up or even ask Threepio." _

_She swallows thickly because she wasn't trying to clean it up. "It was my fault," and it's split between a lie and the truth. "I didn't know there were so many shards," and it's hoarse as her eyes dart away, drifting to sitting room where the flowers are still scattered upon the floor, back to the scene of where she can still hear the words he spat. She pushed too far when she brought up his mother. _

As highly exaggerated as it is, there is some grain of truth that Obi-Wan Kenobi will contemplate in the sand dunes of a lonely planet, cast far away from the realm of Darth Vader's thoughts in the aftermath of her.

"_Senator," he politely murmurs as her sleeve slides up to reveal a bruise upon her wrist, blackened against her soft skin,_ _his brow furrowing at the sight with worry lacing into his features, "your wrist," but she quickly drowns her hand in the sleeve of her cloak. "Is nothing," she finishes quickly, moving faster in the halls of the Senate to escape because he can sense lies and if he inspects the bruise, he will find that its shape matches that of a grip far too tight, suffocating and constraining, "Master Jedi," and she smiles softly to convey some kindness for his concern because he will interpret something that isn't there—it's just that he forgets how strong the mechanical hand can be. _

"_Have Anakin look at it if you won't let me," and he's saying this because maybe there is some potential with the force to help alleviate it. "It's not nothing." _

_He doesn't see her smile quiver ever so faintly at the mention of the hero because she quickly acquiesces to his request, "If I can find him before he leaves again, I will." _

_He laughs slightly and her smile turns genuine. "He must be tinkering in the Temple," he comments, "Or with that blasted hand," and her smile is forced, "He resents it more than anything." _

But it's confirmed when the recordings from Mustafar surface to the public from the investigation launched by the Emperor for justice, and they claim the audio was far too corrupted with the majority of the tampered footage, but it's enough to release to the world the evidence of the Senator being choked by Anakin Skywalker.

_She's trailing after him as he storms away from the intimacy of their bedroom, running because his anger is simmering and its inevitable to erupt and he can't loose control with her this close. "Anakin, please," she's pleading, chasing after him, barefoot. "How long will it take for us to be honest with one another?" _

"_Go back to bed," he cautions, mechanical hand raised because he isn't about to have another row with her. _

"_I'm your wife, Anakin," she sternly reminds him, "you can't do this to me," and her voice cracks because there shouldn't be so many secrets when their relationship has been a secret. _

"_I have to go back to the Temple," and he's disregarding her words as much as she's not listening to his. _

"_The last time you were honest with me was when you massacred all those Sand People," she harshly yells, screaming because he's deaf to what she's saying, and it sounds as if she's condemning him as she failed to when he first told her. _

_His eyes ignite with a fury. "I'm a Jedi," and he's reiterating it as if it will pay for his sins and if it recuses him of all the blood that stains his hands. _

"_It doesn't put you above morality and crime, Anakin," she hisses, forgetting what had been the point because humanity is far more important for him to understand than his duties as a secret husband. _

"_An eye for an eye," he justifies, jaw clenched. _

"_She was already dead," she brokenly chants, "You could have done nothing to bring her back and revenge for her death doesn't solve anything. An eye for an eye will make the world blind." _

"_Your justice system doesn't work," he spits violently, "I won't rely on crooked, corrupt puppets for justice." _

"_They'd be held accountable for their crimes in a jury, prosecuted according to their rights and the laws of the Republic," she spews, "under the democracy you and I serve," and her feet are traveling forward as she confronts her husband because he's slandering everything she believes in and the people that uphold it, but he's turning away, biting his tongue because if he opens his mouth, he will exacerbate this. "She wouldn't have died in vain." _

_His hands don't even touch her but she stumbles back into the table, knocking over the vase as she struggles to stand upright before she breaks the glass of the table and lands in a sea of glass, but she ends up with scattered and strewn shards of glass from the vase shattering that she walks into when she finds balance to reach him. _

"_Don't speak about my mother," he threatens, not extending a hand to her and not flinching as she slices her feet. _

The Jedi swallows thickly because he knows that these violent instances do not appear from nothing—there is a pattern or some path that had previously been established in the relationship and he has to admit that there were instances when he should have known. But there is always that moment when suddenly it's blatant of what has been slowly evolving and blossoming and that Mustafar was that moment when he realized what was happening between Anakin and Padmé.

"_Who was here," he harshly demands, pacing around the sitting room, darting his eyes around for some sign of the identity of the man that had been in his apartment with his wife. _

"_Senator Clovis," she answers, far away from her husband, separated by the couch. _

"_Alone," he snarls, clenching his fists. _

"_It was for lunch," she defends, not allowing him to continue the line of thought, "and it was business." _

"_But you were alone—no handmaidens, no Threepio, no other Senators," he clarifies to paint a picture. "Alone with a man you once had a past with, romantically involved with," he elaborates angrily. "But it was business," and he expels heavily as if he doesn't believe her, almost mockingly as he stalks towards her, "in our apartment alone." _

"_It's not a crime to be home or for another Senator to swing by and drop off datapads that I need for a proposal and invite the friend in for lunch," and she turns away, heading away from the barrier back to her bedroom. _

_His mechanical hand chokes her wrist as he yanks back because he isn't finished talking with her. "Was it clear that it was friendly or was there to be interpreted as a rekindle of romance," he spits disgusted," or did you forget to distinguish?" _

"_Don't you trust me," she spat back but his grip was merciless, tightening its noose. "Don't do it again," he warns before he releases her wrist that is bruised from his grip. _

***I wasn't happy with how the prequels portrayed Anakin and Padmé's relationship, especially if he choked her in RoS—I figured that the signs of their relationship to escalate to that had to have existed minimally beforehand even if he never laid a hand on her. **


	2. Leaving and Ends

The women gathered around whispering about the late Senator, asking how could she have stayed in that kind of love, making accusations and promises they can't uphold having not known how charming and deceiving he can be, not understanding how it wasn't always violent—there were beautiful moments that she clung to. Ignorant assumptions because they assert how they'd never let a man put his hands on them, not knowing that it never starts off with a slap, not knowing that he'll apologize and make excuses, not understanding the cycle. They have the audacity to wonder how she could have stayed, knowing the fate that would befall her as all the statistics say about these relationships—how destruction is inevitable, death at the hands of the lover. But they would most likely snidely correct lover to abuser and disregard that she ever loved the man or that he ever could have fractionally loved her.

_He crouches down, lifting his heels from the carpet as his knees bend, shifting his weight to his toes as he shakily offers a bouquet of Nubian flowers and a fractured smile, apologetic for having hurt her in any way. "Forgive me," and he hasn't even apologized but it's the closest she will ever reach to having it from him—maybe it says something about him because he can't ever take the blame with the simple phrase. _

_Her eyes well up because there is a part of her that has already rationalized and explained his actions and anger and she's already forgiven him for it, but it's always appreciative when he does openly ask for absolution. She hasn't realized it's that same mentality from all those years ago after his mother's death and maybe she should. _

"_I haven't been sleeping with the war," he explains, but it's all unrelated to the responsibility of why—shouldering the blame elsewhere because if he didn't, then he'd be the only one left, "and the war itself is frustrating because there is never any progress to its end, just incessant fighting." _

_Softly, "I know," she murmurs. _

But when the rebellion secretly leaks the footage from the marriage of Anakin and Padmé—Bail having done so because he had heard just how much the late Senator was being condemned for having fallen in love with the wrong man, naïve to the path she chose when she vowed herself to this young Jedi—there is a different picture painted and it answers somewhat how she could have stayed. It's hard to answer because so much could have changed from the day they wed, blissfully happy, to the atrocious day on Mustafar and they can't fill in the blanks, unable to pinpoint when everything fell apart.

_His arms slip around her waist and he twirls her gracefully around, giggling as she holds tightly to his forearms, dress whirling around them. But what they don't see is that they're just one of those spinning tops, spinning and teetering on the tiniest little point before it all topples, spinning faster and faster, recklessly so. _

"_Ani, you aren't supposed to see me until the ceremony," she whines when they teeter to the left from all the spinning, breathless. _

_His lips brush against her earlobe, tenderly whispering, "I want you to know the vows I wrote but can never speak at our ceremony." His lips kiss the soft bit of flesh below her earlobe. "I vow to you that I will never speak to you as Palo had when you were younger, I will never make you feel small in that way, never make you feel unworthy or ugly or insecure as he had. I vow to never be him as your husband. I won't do that to you, Padmé." _

_Tears trickle down because he wasn't supposed to know that side of Palo—he had simply been the wrong boy to fall in love with and all girls have one of those at some time. "Anakin," she murmurs through the saltiness of her tears, but she can't find the words that should come after. She chuckles humorlessly, "I love you." _

And then the funeral procession is held after so much waiting—beautiful as ever even in death, she is led through the streets of Theed in a carriage, Nubian flowers entangled in her curls, hands sprawled and cradling her belly that the galaxy now has seen. They whisper of such a tragedy for such a beauty—how she fell in love, blinded, and how she stayed because she was carrying his unborn child and how even the greatest fall.

Upon the sight of her pregnant belly, rumors whirl around about a jealous rage, a temper about her having kept the child when he had not wanted one, her denial for an abortion, and there are litany more just as circumstantial as the next concerning her death and her husband and their unborn. It stirs up more mourning and less answers that the Emperor can give—but he says how the Senator wanted a private life away from the media and her plan to leave her duties when the war was finished and return to Naboo for a life with her child and she hid it all because she could never reveal she had married a Jedi at the time for their code forbade such. And all the pieces of somewhat fall in place and they forget the questions of why she had been on Mustafar or why Anakin Skywalker had been there shortly around the time the Trade Federation leaders were executed by Darth Vader, why for those first few hours of the Jedi Purge the Empire had made Skywalker to be a hero in saving the Emperor only to have Darth Vader kill him.

Years later when Luke Skywalker is old enough to ask of his mother, most have forgotten the victim with the drowning news of Darth Vader's heroics and the villainy of the Rebel Alliance, and they will tell him she was just a woman, beautiful but lost and misguided, and they won't elaborate that she was a woman of influence, just tell the boy she was far too forgiving and blind for her own good. When he asks of his father, the crimes of Anakin Skywalker are hardly ever spoken about nor are the heroics for those have long since been taboo after the scandal was released all those years ago—they tell the boy of how he was just a spice freighter pilot, never home and far too young to be a father, reckless and selfish and that he should forget the man. But the boy will come to know of the lies they told him about his father—Obi-Wan will not devour much into his father apart from him being a Jedi once that brought the Order to extinction, Yoda will not say much except that he fell to the Dark Side because he was angry, and the Rebel Alliance will not speak of Anakin Skywalker though those that do remember will speak of a time long ago when he had been the Hero with No Fear but refuse to say anything about how the hero fell from grace, and only after the Empire has fallen will he ever find any of those articles about Anakin Skywalker and his wife and the abusive relationship they unraveled.

As Bail raises the daughter of Anakin and Padmé, he does not tell the girl of her birth mother until she is nearly in the Senate and she must know, but he does the raise the girl so she understands what love is—so she never confuses it, never excuses violent words and empty threats. But even then, he won't tell the girl her mother's name because she will search for it and there are things he isn't capable of explaining and lying about. But after the Empire fell, she found her mother's name and she read all the articles, watched the footage of Mustafar over and over again, and she travels to Naboo to her mother's grave and she kneels before, asking her mother how she could have ever chanted that she loved that monster as he killed her.

But there isn't any answer to be given to her daughter.

They say she stays until the fear of staying is far greater than the fear of leaving, and maybe that's so. Maybe she stayed because even heroes fall from grace and she hoped he'd climb back. Maybe she stayed because of the children. Maybe she stayed because she feared no one else could save him. Maybe she stayed because she loved him. Maybe…

_On the first page of our story_

_The future seemed so bright_

_Then this thing turned out so evil_

_I don't know why I'm still surprised_

_Even angels have their wicked schemes_

_And you take that to new extremes_

_But you'll always be my hero_

_Even though you've lost your mind_


	3. Recognition and Fear

_You turned her against me…_

To say that the Senator never had an inkling would be inaccurate, there were moments when it felt that he gone too far, it was unwarranted to incur such a wrath, but with time she pushed it aside with the chanting of how the war is influencing him—how he can't return home to her un-poisoned from the violence.

_His glove is thrown across the bedroom as he sits perched at the edge of the bed, combat boots still laced, his eyes trained on the wires that slip past all the mechanical metal of his hand. _

_She pools her dress as she kneels before him, softly extending her hand to his hands, whispering, "Ani, you have to go to the Temple. You're running late." _

"_I don't have to," he grits out, "I don't deploy until this afternoon." Beneath his brow, his eyes rise to hers and there is something calculating and cold about his look. "Why do I need to leave now, love," and he veils it all with the last word, but her spine tingles regardless. _

_Her tongue stumbles to awkwardly tell him that she hadn't known, how she thought he had to be there this morning like he had said last night, how she was just trying to maintain appearances, how she didn't want them to be discovered because he would have to revoke his duties as a Jedi and the war couldn't afford that, nor could the Republic. But there's that little seed of doubt for why she has to explain an innocent mistake—a miscommunication—and why he has to suspect something that isn't there. _

But growing up, she never really knew how to identify it—in all the activism, it was just having a split lip, cracked ribs, bruised face, both hands upon you, it was never what she saw.

_The smoke reels into the evening sky and she's helplessly watching the Temple burn, turning his words over and over in her head because how could they have done what he's accused them of, and she's gnawing at her lip because how can he stand there before her and not in the Temple without having done something and she doesn't want to ponder his involvement with the Temple blazing into flames, but she can't necessarily avoid it either. _

_Despondently, "Senator," and she cranes back to the voice of Obi-Wan, "The democracy we stood for is in ashes," and his eyes cast far away to the Temple and her heart plummets because this isn't what Anakin had told her, and she fully turns, stepping towards the man because Anakin has never been for words about truth as Obi-Wan has disregarding that her belly is fully exposed and hardly concealed and all her secrets would come crumbling down. "What happened," she pleads. _

_His eyes droop to her belly before his eyelids bow in exhaustion, "I need you to sit down first." _

_Her hands cradle her unborn and she whimpers because how could she have forgotten and this isn't the way he was supposed to learn of the child, and she's frightened of what he will say. _

"_The Temple was attacked," he whispers and she nods because she can see that much, "Clone Troopers pillaged it," and she feels her stomach twist in knots because she knows they were led an she knows of only a few Jedi commanders and her husband is one, "They massacred the Temple," he elaborates, swallowing thickly because he's omitting so much. "Under the orders of Palpatine." And he averts his gaze because he can't tell her who led them, can't tell her what he saw him do because he already knows who the father of her unborn is—he knows why she kept it secret, all it took was that moment when she turned and he knew. _

_Her throat is raw—but she manages a rough whisper, "Why are you here, Obi-Wan?" And she's steering herself from all those inklings she feels because she can't admit that. _

"_Anakin is the father," he whispers back, just as tiresome and trying to sail away from all the things she won't admit. _

_Her stomach churns again. "No," and the lie rolls easily off her tongue but he sees through her lie. _

_But he concedes to her lie because he knows denial is far easier than acceptance. "All those years ago, there was a little boy on a far away planet," he softly begins, "and he promised he'd freed all the slaves in the galaxy," and his voice is cracking because that boy hasn't done that, and he pauses, "I have to help that boy, Padmé." _

_The first words that come to her tongue are how that boy doesn't exist anymore—she doesn't see that little boy from long ago, that boy that called her angel, but she doesn't speak it. "He said he see all the planets in the galaxy," she whispers back, "I don't know where he is." And she says it because there are moments when she thinks that boy still exists, it's buried in that Hero with No Fear somewhere. _

"_Please, if I don't the democracy we stood for will be history," he pleads. _

"_You and Anakin will overthrow Palpatine," she naively murmurs. _

_His heart seizes up in his chest. "Anakin led those Clones," he whispers and it shatters any illusion she had. "He led the raid on the Temple. He killed the Younglings," and his gaze drops to her unborn—her stomach violently twisting with bile at her tongue. _

_Horrifically, "No, he wouldn't have," she mumbles incoherently, denying her most innate fear of him ever hurting their child unintentionally as he had her or having gone too far with the repercussions of the war onto their innocent child, and her hands shield her child from such danger. _

"_Without mercy, without hesitation," he elaborates because she has to understand what's at stake—what has to be done. _

She was trembling as she boarded for that flight to Mustafar after Obi-Wan left—afraid for the first time of her husband because he had crossed limits she never believed would have been.

But there is always that moment when he establishes fear into her—his victim. It's not always physical fear he instills, sometimes it's deceiving—it's that fear that he will risk his life and possibly die at her hands because she hadn't stayed, or that she hadn't kept it a secret what he had done in the sands of a forgotten planet and what a murderer might do.

At the point she recognizes the fear, it's far too late for most to simply abandon him and leave—she's far too enraptured and entangled in the web to leave, and she may have admitted what it exactly is but she can't leave still for whatever reason. And the Senator knew then, what she was in—knew as she boarded that flight—just didn't know that all it had led up to was a part of it.


End file.
